Sex offender pleads guilty to criminal child enticement

A registered sex offender pleaded guilty last month to criminally enticing two girls and was sentenced to serve 20 days in prison.

Nicholas Matthew Adam Mularchuk, 29, was ordered to be placed on probation for two years, to contact an alcohol treatment program, and not to have unsupervised contact with children under the age of 15 years old. He was fined $500 with $250 suspended.

A copy of the Juneau District Court misdemeanor judgment was provided to the Empire on Wednesday.

Mularchuk admitted to two misdemeanor counts of criminal child enticement for drunkenly yelling from his front porch, “Come in if you want to have a good time,” and “Come back, I can show you a good time.”

Prosecutors said he was shirtless and talking to two girls, ages 12 and 14, who were walking near Mularchuk’s residence on Hayes Way in mid-March. The girls ran away, and their parents filled out a citizen’s arrest report.

Attorney’s debated the seriousness of the crime during Mularchuk’s change of plea and sentencing hearing in April.

City prosecutor August Petropulos said he was certain Mularchuk was guilty and it was obvious the girls were underage based on their height. Though Petropulos did note, “You can think of it as a drunk guy making a smart-aleck-type comment, or you can take it more seriously, saying he was trying to entice girls into his house.”

Mularchuk’s attorney Thomas Wagner conceded the statement frightened the girls, but said Mularchuk’s friend and the friend’s grandfather were inside the home at the time.

“It’s possible it wasn’t even Mr. Mularchuk,” Wagner said, adding, “He said they were being drunk and stupid, but they weren’t actually trying to entice the girls inside.”

Judge Thomas Nave said it didn’t matter whether it was a “stupid” statement.

“It doesn’t make any difference to the ears of the young girls you said it to,” Nave told Mularchuk. “It was clear that you terrified them.”

Nave said, “As a father, when I read this complaint, it made me angry.”

Nave continued the plea deal reached with prosecutors should provide sufficient deterrence to make Mularchuk think twice about his actions in the future, given the suspended jail time.

“I hope you take it as seriously as I do,” the judge said.

Mularchuk was sentenced to serve 90 days in prison with 80 days suspended for each of the two counts, meaning there’s 20 days to serve.

According to prosecutors and online sex crime databases, Mularchuk was court-martialed by the U.S. Army in Fort Stewart, Ga., and convicted of sodomy on Feb. 2, 2008.